Cicero the satirist? Scurrilous poses in the Letters

Shut out from power during Caesar's rule, Cicero responded creatively to his circumstances in his correspondence. Specifically, this article investigates Cicero's experiments in epistolary satire in letters to L. Papirius Paetus. As he takes up a series of comically self-important and self-mocking stances, from jester to pedant to gourmand and budding bon vivant, Cicero employs the content and concepts of satire to draw attention to his own lack of power and to vent his anger and despair, while at the same time demonstrating his harmlessness. Afforded access to newly powerful people and granted participation in their pleasures, in these letters Cicero sketches the limits of what can be safely said and done under Caesar and draws attention to the galling paradox of the new regime, namely, that speaking frankly has become a privilege that has been granted and can be revoked.